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ADDRESS 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



Gen. ROBERT E. LEE, 



Delivered on the 12th of October, 1871, 



BEFORE THE 



Society of Confederate Soldiers and Sailors, 

I n ]V[ aryland. 



By Lieut. General WADE HAMPTON. 






BALTIMORE: 

Printed by John Murphy & Co 

Publishers, Booksellers, Printers and Stationers. 
182 Baltimore Street. 

1871. 



ETa-g-j 
J 



Bnttrtb atrorbing lo ^£t of Congress, in tl>t star 
1871, bg John Mcrphy & Co., in tjn fflffitt at tbt 
pbrarian of Congress, at SBastjington. 



ADDRESS 



Mr. President and Members of the Society : 

The survivors of the Confederate Army and Navy in Mary- 
land, have done me the honor to invite me to address them on 
this anniversary, so full of mournful interest to the South, and 
they have given me the grand theme which has already engaged, 
and will engage for generations to come, the ablest pens and the 
most eloquent tongues in Christendom, " The Life and Charac- 
ter of Robert Lee." 

Whilst appreciating the compliment that brings me before you, 
it is with a profound sense of my inability to "rise to the height 
of this great argument," that I assume the duty your kindness has 
imposed. Nor would I venture to do so, comrades of the Con- 
federate service, were it not that it seems to me no duty can be 
more sacred than that which bids every true man of the South, at 
all times, by all means, in all places, to pay homage to the charac- 
ter, and honor to the memory of our great leader. To myself, 
whose good fortune it was to follow that illustrious Chief, from 
the beginning to the close of the marvellous career, which has 
placed his name by the side of those of the world's greatest cap- 
tains, — who Avitnessed his grand magnanimity in the flush of his 
proudest triumphs, — his sublime serenity in the hour of disaster, — 
who was sustained by his constant faith in the justice of our cause, 
encouraged by his kindness, and honored by his friendship, — this 
call to join in doing honor to his memory, has the sanctity and 
the tenderness that death, and death alone, can give. Once again, 
and for the last time, I seem placed on duty in the service of my 
old Commander, and the voice that summons me here, waking 
many of the proudest, though saddest, emotions of my heart, 
comes from the tomb of him, who, though "dead, yet speaketh." 



It would ill become any Confederate soldier, who is not a renegade 
to the faith for which he fought, to, refuse to deck the honored 
grave of Lee, and while the humble garland I would reverently 
and tenderly place on that hallowed spot, seems but poor and 
withered by the side of those rare flowers the world has, with such 
lavish hand, scattered there, let me hope that my votive offering 
will be accepted in the spirit in which it is made. Believe me, it 
comes from a heart which feels profoundly that calamity which, 
while taking from the bereaved South that son of hers in whom 
centered so much of the just pride, the heartfelt gratitude, the pas- 
sionate love of his countrymen, has stricken down the first soldier 
of his time, and deprived humanity and Christianity alike of one 
of their highest ornaments. 

It is fortunate for you, my friends, as well as for myself, that 
the subject you have given me, needs not the adventitious aids of 
rhetoric, the embellishments of fancy, or the persuasive power of 
eloquence, to commend it to your hearts. The story of that grand 
life, which has so recently come to an end, is best told in the sim- 
ple and severe language of truth, and the character of him who 
made that life so noble and so virtuous, will be best delineated by 
the plain recital that recalls the virtues which gave it lustre, and 
tells of the genius that has crowned it with undying glory. To do 
this properly, is a task of no ordinary magnitude, for the bare 
enumeration of the deeds that made Lee great, and of the virtues 
that made him good, would more than cousume the time allotted 
to this occasion, and the picture then presented to you, though 
drawn from life itself, by the hand of truth, would seem almost 
too bright to belong to humanity. 

But to those, — should there be such, — who regard the portrait 
as too highly colored, let the record of a life full to overflowing 
with heroic deeds, and of a character crowned with every virtue, 
speak for itself. By thus holding up to your view the record of 
that heroic and unblemished life, my task will be best discharged, 
while the lessons such a life should teach will sink deeper into our 
hearts and those of our children than any words of eulogy, how- 



ever deserved, or any power of language, however eloquent, could 
inculcate. But while a proper respect for the great dead, as well 
as for ourselves, impels us to do reverence to his memory, the ful- 
filment of this duty overwhelms us with bitter grief, for it recalls 
to our weary hearts, all those hopes that lie buried in the grave of 
Lee. When the Trojan Chief, flying from his ruined city, under 
whose " high walls" he had prayed to die, was urged by the Car- 
thagenian Queen to recount the misfortunes of his country, with a 
heart broken by the loss of friends, of kindred, and of native land, 
he exclaimed: " Infandum, Rcgina, jubes renovate dolerem; qiucquc 
miserrima ipsi vidi." 

These pathetic words of the Trojan exile wake a sorrowful echo 
in the heart of many a patriot in the desolated South, as standing 
amid the ruin of his country, he looks, with moistened eye and 
saddened heart, on the grave of him who was that country's ablest 
defender. It is with feelings such as these, where the deepest grief 
for the failure of our cause, — exulting pride in the heroic struggle 
we have made, — profound sorrow for the martyrs of that cause, — 
and a strong sense of the duty we owe to their memory are all 
blended, — that I come to speak to you of Lee. 

Robert Edward Lee, — durum et venerabile nomen, — comes of 
a race whose names have won honorable mention in history for 
centuries past. The founder of the family, Launcelot Lee, came 
to England with William the Conqueror. Farther on, in the old 
English annals which tell of the Crusades to the Holy Land — that 
romantic episode in the history of the world — we read that Lionel 
Lee, at the head of a goodly retinue of gallant knights and brave 
men-at-arms, fought under the banner of Richard Coeur de Lion, 
on the plains of Palestine, and as a reward for his great gallantry 
was created first Earl of Litchfield. Richard Lee, a younger scion 
of this noble house, came to America during the reign of Charles the 
First, and became the founder of a family which has given to our 
country many of its most devoted patriots, its most distinguished 
soldiers, and its most able statesmen. It would be impossible to 
record here the deeds, or to recall even the names of those who 



6 

have made this family so illustrious in our annals. Nor, perhaps, 
would this be the proper occasion to do so. This task belongs 
more appropriately to the biographer, and it cannot fail to be a 
source of gratification to the countrymen of the great Confederate 
Commander-in-Chief to know that in this instance this duty de- 
volves on one eminently qualified to fulfil it, — that gallant officer, 
who was distinguished as his Aid, and honored as his friend. It 
seems too, peculiarly fit and proper, that a kinsman of that Mar- 
shall, who recorded the mighty actions and the sublime virtues 
of our Washington, should tell of the mightier actions and the 
equal virtues of our Lee. 

Though time forbids me to do more than glance at the distin- 
guished ancestry of Gen. Lee, I cannot omit to mention one name 
dear to every lover of liberty — that of Henry Lee — Light Horse 
Harry of our first Revolution — who, besides achieving for himself 
a noble fame in the same great cause for which his son fought — 
the right of self-government — will be immortalized as the friend 
of our first Washington and the father of our second. During all 
these centuries, through which the descent of Gen. Lee has been 
traced, we find representatives of the stock whence he sprung, 
winning for themselves distinction and renown on sea, as well as 
on land, claiming a proud place alike in English and American 
History, and proving themselves worthy ancestors of one, who was 
destined to make their name, already illustrious, immortal for all 
time to come. Blessed as Gen. Lee was in his descent from ances- 
tors so distinguished, he was scarcely less so in the land of his 
nativity, — that grand old Commonwealth from whose prolific 
womb have sprung so many heroes, sages, and patriots, — proud, 
heroic, but now mourning Virginia ! By a strange coincidence, 
to which his subsequent character and career gave peculiar signifi- 
cance, the place of his birth in Westmoreland county was within a 
few miles of the spot where Washington first saw the light. The 
natural objects and scenes that surround the boy exercise a power- 
ful influence in forming the character of the man. We see how 
potent is this mysterious power of nature, not only upon indivi- 



duals, but upon nations, for we find the spirit, genius, and charac- 
teristics of different peoples, transmitted unchanged from genera- 
tion to generation, through centuries of national existence. Not 
only do the physical features of a country tend to form the charac- 
ter of its people, but its traditions, its associations, and its memo- 
ries, contribute to the same result. During the boyhood of Gen. 
Lee, these natural influences must have exerted a powerful effect 
on his mind and his heart. 

Descended from one of the most ancient and honorable families 
of a State, every page of whose history was blazoned by glorious 
deeds and noble names; gazing from his proud ancestral home up 
to the same sky and over the same fields upon which the eyes of 
Washington, of Monroe, of Richard Henry Lee and of Henry Lee 
had first opened ; listening to the words of his patriotic father, as 
he recounted the glorious deeds of the Revolution, while the sound 
of the same British guns, which had waked the slumbering echoes 
of Virginia in that war, was borne by every breeze that swept the 
broad bosom of the Potomac, to his young ears, — is it strange that 
the soul of the boy should have been filled with high and noble 
aspirations, and that his heart should have been stirred by the 
hereditary fire of his heroic ancestry ? " The child is father to 
the man ; " and though but few reminiscences of the boyhood of 
Lee have been given to the public, we have every reason to sup- 
pose that the scenes which surrounded him at this period, induced 
him to choose arms as his profession, while the teachings and the 
example of his parents implanted then in his heart those seeds of 
virtue, which were destined to bear in his later years such full and 
rich harvest. But while there are, as I have said, but few public 
memorials of Gen. Lee's boyhood, there are nevertheless some, 
which seeu in the light cast on them by subsequent events, possess 
great interest. These shew, not only what his disposition was, but 
how that disposition was encouraged and his character formed by 
the earnest exhortations of his father, and the tender care of his 
mother. He had the misfortune to lose his father in early youth, 
just at the time his example and instruction were most needed, but 



8 

the force of this great loss was broken by the judicious manage- 
ment of an affectionate mother. The letters of his father, written 
in the last years of his life to one of his elder children, are full of 
the warmest affection, the soundest advice and the noblest senti- 
ments. In them we can readily trace the source from which his 
illustrious son imbibed his life-long love of truth, his devotion to 
duty and his practice of virtue. A few extracts from these letters 
will prove, not only how earnestly the writer impressed on his 
children a constant adherence to virtue, but will also enable us 
to discern the foundation of the character of Gen. Lee, which, 
when rounded off in all its beauty and filled out to its grand 
proportions, won the admiration of the world by its virtues, and 
extorted its wonder by its greatness. In the first of these letters 
to. his son, he speaks of " the love and practice of virtue, the only 
real good in life;" and he goes on to say, "You know my abhor- 
rence of lying, and you have been often told by me that it led to 
every vice and cancelled every tendency to virtue. Never forget 
this truth, and disdain the mean and infamous practice. Epami- 
nondas, the great Theban, who was the most virtuous man of his 
age, so abhorred lying that he would never tell one even in jest. 
Imitate this great man and you may equal him in goodness — infi- 
nitely to be preferred to his greatness. I pray you never to forget 
that virtue is our first good, and lying its deadly foe. Above all 
things earthly, even love to the best of mothers and your ever- 
devoted father, I entreat you to cherish truth and abhor decep- 
tion. * * * Socrates justly thought man's great business was to 
learn how to do good and to avoid evil. Be a steady, ardent 
disciple of Socrates, and regard virtue, whose temple is built upon 
truth as its chief good. I would rather see you unlearned and 
unnoticed, if virtuous in practice as well as in theory, than to see 
you the equal in glory to the great Washington ; but virtue and 
wisdom are not opponents ; they are friends, and coalesce in a few 
characters such as his. * * * Fame in arms or art, however con- 
spicuous, is naught unless bottomed on virtue. Think, therefore, 
of fame only as the appendage of virtue, and be virtuous, though 
poor, humble and scorned." 



9 

Before leaving these admirable letters, so full of the noblest 
teachings and the sublimest truths, and which are in such striking 
contrast to the worldly wisdom, the grovelling, narrow philosophy 
inculcated by Chesterfield to his son, let me give one other extract, 
which possesses for us a tender interest as relating to him whom 
we now mourn. Speaking with just pride and rare discrimination 
of that son, whose character I am now endeavoring, though with 
feeble and unequal hand to portray, he says: " Robert was always 
good, and will be confirmed in his happy turn of mind by his 
ever-watchful and affectionate mother. Does he strengthen his 
native tendency?" The heart that dictated, and the hand that 
penned these lines, have long been cold in death ; he to whom 
they were applied, after a life dedicated to virtue and illustrated 
by glory, has just gone down to his grave, followed by the prayers, 
the blessings and the tears of his afflicted countrymen, and no 
nobler or truer epitaph could be inscribed on his tomb than those 
simple and touching words: "he was always good." Turning 
from the contemplation of the boyhood of Lee, so full of promise, 
we find him at the age of eighteen entered as a cadet at West 
Point, where, as everywhere else through life, his character and 
his ability placed him in the very front rank. During his whole 
academic course he never received a demerit or a reprimand, and 
at his graduation he stood amongst the highest in a class among 
whom were such men as Joseph E. Johnston. 

Leaving West Point with the rank of Lieutenant in the Corps 
of Engineers, he was engaged in the duties of this department 
of the service till the breaking out of the Mexican Avar, when 
he was assigned to duty with the Central Army, as its Chief 
Engineer, with the rank of Captain. With his career during that 
war you are too familiar to require more than an allusion to it 
here. You remember with what rapidity he rose from compara- 
tive obscurity to high and deserved prominence, — how he con- 
stantly received, as he richly merited, the warm commendation of 
his Commanding Officer, — how he returned covered with honors 
and decorations, and how he was universally considered even then, 



10 

as one of the ablest soldiers of the country. The high reputation 
he had achieved in Mexico, caused him, when the opportunity was 
presented by the formation of two new Cavalry regiments in 1855, 
to be promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, and assigned to duty with the 
2d Cavalry, which was then commanded by one, whose name is 
justly enshrined in the heart of every Southern patriot — Albert 
Sydney Johnston. From this time until the momentuous year of 
1861, he was employed with his regiment in the ordinary routine 
of duty on the Western Frontier. One occurrence which took 
place during this period, however, deserves notice, not only be- 
cause it brought him prominently forward, but because the circum- 
stances attending it foreshadowed darkly and unmistakably, the 
progress of that fell spirit which was soon to convulse the country 
with the horrors of civil war, threatening to extinguish the sacred 
fire of liberty in the blood of its worshippers. This was the first 
invasion of Virginia by a band of Northern outlaws, under leader- 
ship of the infamous John Brown, having for its avowed object, 
the inciting of the blacks to massacre the whites, and giving the 
State over to rapine, arson and murder. Lee was sent to suppress 
this flagrant outrage and to bring the perpetrators to justice, a task 
he accomplished promptly and successfully. The sympathy openly 
expressed in many quarters for these outlaws, and the apotheosis 
of their leader, who expiated justly, but inadequately, his crimes 
on a gallows, caused reflecting minds to ponder anxiously on the 
critical juncture of affairs; and doubtless, during the lull in the 
storm which was so soon to sweep over the South in all its fury, 
Gen. Lee was not unmindful of the dangers hanging over his 
country, nor uncertain of the duty every patriot owed to that 
country. From the time of this flagrant violation of the laws of 
God and of man, events hurried on with such fearful and ominous 
rapidity, that the most sanguine began to lose all hope of a peace- 
ful solution of our political difficulties. Their worst fears were 
realized ; all efforts at mediation failed, and the beginning of the 
year 1861 found the Cotton States withdrawn from the Federal 
Union, and arrayed under that new Government which was des- 



11 

tined to have, if the briefest, yet the most glorious national exist- 
ence ever given to a people. Of the causes which led to this result 
this is neither the time nor the occasion to speak; suffice it to say, 
that in the exercise of this right of withdrawal, which they felt to 
be as unquestionable as inalienable, the Southern States resorted 
to the only means by which they believed their honor could be 
vindicated and their liberties preserved. Not until the heat of 
passion, the mists of prejudice and the venom of hate, which have 
so deeply stained American annals during the last decade, have 
subsided, can the true story of this last great Revolution be given 
to the world. Then will the impartial historian be called on to 
tell with what heartfelt reluctance the South, driven to despera- 
tion, severed the bonds, no longer fraternal, which bound her to 
that Union she had so largely aided to make, and threw off a 
Government which her wisdom had mainly formed, and which 
her patriotism and her genius had so greatly illustrated. 

But leaving the discussion of these questions to the future his- 
torian, they need be touched on here only in so far as the conduct 
and career of Gen. Lee were influenced by them. After the seces- 
sion of the Cotton States, all eyes were turned to Virginia. The 
action of this great State was in accordance with her ancient 
renown. She stepped forth as a mediator, and exerted the in- 
fluence, her character, her position, and her patriotism authorized 
her to use. It would be difficult to over-estimate the influence 
which she could of right claim. It was one of her sons — a Lee, — 
who first offered in Congress the resolution, declaring that these 
States were and of right ought to be free and independent; — 
another son of hers drew up the Declaration of Independence, 
and yet another led the armies of the infant Republic to the 
establishment of its liberties. Her sons fought from Massa- 
chusetts to Georgia, wherever the common cause demanded, and 
it is not too much to say, that without her aid, the Independence 
of America would never have been established. Nor did her 
patriotic efforts and sacrifices end with the Avar of Revolution. 
Rich herself in an almost boundless territory, she gave an empire 



12 

to that union she had formed, because she " preferred the good of 
their country to ever)' object of smaller importance." 

Noble mother of States and of men by whom States are made, 
she has lived to see the weapons of her own children dyed in her 
blood, and to feel " how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to 
have a thankless child." But true to the great traditions of her 
mighty past, she felt that she had the right to speak with almost 
parental authority in the great crisis which had come upon the 
country. The tones in which she urged conciliation and forbear- 
ance were grave and solemn, befitting the occasion that called 
them forth, and her conduct well became her old fame. 

When Virginia found all her efforts to preserve peace were 
fruitless, and that the only alternative left to her, was to fight for 
the subjugation of her sister States of the South, or to aid them in 
their struggle for independence, as she had done in 1776, she 
could not hesitate for an instant. True to the great memories of 
the past — true to the great teachings of her immortal sons — true 
to that Declaration of Independence she had framed — true to the 
spirit of liberty that had always inspired her, she took her place 
grandly in the ranks of the Southern Confederacy. 

It would be foreign to the present subject to discuss the ques- 
tion whether Virginia had or had not the right to do this. It is 
sufficient for our purpose to know that she, whose hand had 
given to the world the Declaration of Independence — whose 
patriotic sons had fought in defence of the principles enunciated 
therein, in every State of the old confederacy, whose statesmen had 
done so much towards forming the Constitution of the United 
States, and had, as Chief Magistrates, directed with so much virtue 
and dignity the earliest steps of the young Republic, felt that she 
had the right to act as she did. 

It is enough for us to know that her Southern sisters hailed 
her advent with joy, not alone on account of the aid her brave 
heart and strong arm would extend, but as giving the sanction 
of her great name and unsullied reputation to the cause in which 
they had embarked. 



13 

To those who questioned her right, she might have replied in 
the words of England's great constitutional lawyer, John Selden, 
when asked by what law he justified the right of resistance, "By 
the custom of England, which is a part of the common law ; " 
while in justification of her action, she could point to the proud 
legend on her shield, " Sic semper tyrannis." 

Whatever opinion may be entertained as to the rightfulness of 
the cause in which she engaged, there can be no doubt as to the 
grandeur of the offering she made to that cause, nor of the self- 
sacrifice with which she made it. She knew that her breast 
would first receive the weapons levelled at her sisters; that her 
soil would be the main battle-field in which this dread issue was 
to be settled ; that her fertile fields would be devastated and her 
pleasant cities laid waste ; that her sons, as of yore, would give 
their best blood in defence of their native land; but knowing this 
she struck bravely and nobly as she has always done for what 
she believed to be the cause of right, of justice and of truth. 

The accession of Virginia to the young confederacy was fraught 
with consequences of the utmost importance, but with none greater 
than that, which, by this action on her part, placed at the service 
of the new and struggling nation that abounding wealth of mili- 
tary talent she possessed. It seems always to have been the 
peculiar province of this great commonwealth to fill with profuse 
hand all demands made on her patriotism or her genius. 

During the whole period of our national existence, she has given 
at the call of the Republic and for its service, heroes, sages and 
patriots, and now when she had linked her fortunes with the 
Southern Confederacy, she filled their most immediate want — 
great Captains to lead their armies. Not here — time would not 
permit — can all the deathless names she gave be recorded. They 
are inscribed on her Roll of Honor, and enshrined in the hearts 
of their countrymen. But were these names fewer than they 
are, the scroll on which they are written would be forever ablaze 
with glory, having on it those of Johnston, of Jackson, and of 
Lee. 



14 

When Virginia, in the exercise of her reserved rights of sover- 
eignty, resumed the powers she had delegated to the Federal Gov- 
ernment, she summoned all her sons, by the allegiance they owed 
her, to rally to her defence. Nobly did they respond, and few 
indeed were the renegades upon whom that call fell unheeded. It 
came to Gen. Lee while he was at Washington, and it aroused in 
his heart emotions of the profoundest and most anxious nature. 
It found him high in rank, but still higher in reputation, in the 
Federal Army. To this service he had dedicated, as he expressed 
it, the best years of his life : all his hopes and aspirations were 
centered in it : for twenty-five years he had served under the Flag 
that belonged to the whole Union, and he could not but know that 
he had himself made no small contribution to the glory that at- 
tached to that Banner. To leave it now was to give up the proud- 
est memories and the most cherished associations of his life, but to 
fight under it against Virginia, he felt would brand his name as 
traitor to the land that gave him birth. The school in which he 
had been educated, held these doctrines of political faith, and it is 
not surprising that he should have imbibed the same views. His 
father had entertained the same convictions, as his correspondence 
shews. While he was Governor of Virginia, in 1792, his name 
had been suggested for the command of the forces on the Western 
frontier, and to a question from Mr. Madison, asking if he would 
accept the position, he replied in these words : " One objection I 
should only have and that is the abandoning my native country, 
to whose goodness I am so much indebted. No consideration on 
earth, could induce me to act a part hoiocver gratifying to me, which 
could be construed into disregard or forgetfulness of this Common- 
wealth." 

He expressed the same opinions in the Legislature of Virginia, 
at a subsequent period, declaring that "the State of Virginia was 
his country, whose will he would obey, however lamentable the 
fate to which it might subject him." It is a significant fact, in 
connection with this question, that Washington himself, catholic 
as was his love for the whole Union, always spoke of Virginia as 



15 

" his country." It is not singular, then, that when Virginia called 
her sons to defend her, Lee responded promptly to the call, 
painful as was the struggle to quit a service in which he had 
won great distinction, and which still held out to him every 
allurement that could tempt an ambition less pure than his own. 
How deep was the pain caused him by this step, is shown in the 
dignified and manly letter in which he tendered his resignation, 
and in that touching one to his sister written on the same day. 
In this letter we see evidences, not only of the painful struggle in 
his own mind, but of that unalterable devotion to duty, which was 
then as always the ruling principle of his life. " With all my 
devotion to the Union," he writes, "and the feelings of loyalty 
and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make 
up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, 
my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the 
army, and save in defence of my native State, with the sincere 
hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may 
never be called on to draw my sword. Think as kindly of me as 
you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought 
right." These words, which the writer could not have imagined 
would ever meet the public eye, give the key, not only to the con- 
duct, but to the character of Gen. Lee. "I have endeavored to 
do what I thought right." 

Some may question the propriety of his action in this, the most 
momentous epoch of his life, but none can ever doubt the sincerity 
of his convictions, or fail to see that here, as everywhere, he obeyed 
the command of duty, that "stern daughter of the voice of God." 
Nor are other evidences wanting to prove that he was actuated 
solely by motives of the highest and purest character. A member 
of his family — the one best qualified to know, to appreciate and to 
sympathize with the contending emotions which then shook his 
soul — has kindly given to me an account of the circumstances 
attending his withdrawal from the United States Army. As no 
words of mine could give the history of this event with the direct- 
ness and the pathos that mark this account, I venture to quote it 



16 

entire, feeling sure that its touching simplicity will move, as its 
truthfulness will convince, every heart. 

" On the 1st day of March, 1861, Col. Lee arrived at Arlington 
from Texas, where he had been on duty with his Regiment, the 2d 
Cavalry, by order of Gen. Scott. He remained quietly at home, 
apparently unmoved by the excitement then so generally prevail- 
ing, and employed on some improvements on the estate, until the 
18th of April, when he was summoned to Washington by President 
Lincoln, to confer with Mr. Blair 'on matters of great importance.' 
He obeyed the summons with evident reluctance, and found Mr. 
Blair had been authorized by the President to offer him the com- 
mand of the United States Army in the field, on any terms he might 
propose, urging every possible argument to convince him that it 
was his duty to accept. Col. Lee replied : 'How can I draw my 
sword against my State and all my friends and connections.' Mr. 
Blair, finding he could make no impression on him, remarked : 
'You had better go to see Mr. Lincoln.' Col. Lee said, 'that 
would be useless, but I must go and take leave of Gen. Scott.' 
This parting was one of great emotion on both sides, Gen. Scott 
saying : ' Lee you have made the greatest mistake of your life, 
but I feared it would be so.' 

"He returned to Arlington late in the afternoon, and after a 
sleepless night, during which he said, ' passed the severest struggle 
of his life,' he determined to resign a commission which he could 
no longer hold with honor. He would gladly have waited, 
hoping even then matters might be accommodated without re- 
course to arms; but this could not be, and on the morning of 
the 20th he sent over his resignation, which was accepted. His 
presence had been earnestly desired in Richmond, but he would 
listen to no proposition from the South while an officer in the 
United States Army. When that relation was severed, he felt 
at liberty to exert all his influence to save the country from the 
impending crisis, and he left for Richmond early on Monday, the 
22d, with but little preparation, hoping even then to return in 
peace; but that was the last time his feet ever trod in the halls of 



17 

that beloved home. He sacrificed it and all the comforts of life, 
for a cause he believed just and righteous, and when disaster and 
ruin attended that cause, he was faithful even unto death." 

To these words of truth, which come from a heart to which the 
honor of Gen. Lee is dearer even than his fame, nothing need be 
or can be added to prove the purity of his motives, and it requires 
but few words more to vindicate his conduct as fully from the 
only charge ever brought against him — that of quitting the Fed- 
eral service to defend the soil of his native State. Those who 
bring this as an accusation against him, do so on the sole ground 
that inasmuch as he was educated at West Point, his services 
belonged of right to the Federal Government during his life, and 
in all contingencies. To give color and weight to this charge, 
which at the best is frivolous, it is asserted that Gen. Lee was 
educated by the Federal Government, which therefore had the 
paramount claim to his allegiance, as well as to his sword. This 
charge betrays ignorance as well as malice. Not the Federal 
Government, but Virginia, educated Gen. Lee. His native State, 
which has contributed so largely to support the Institution at 
West Point, sent him there. She had the right to receive an 
equivalent in the military training of her sons, for her contribu- 
tion to an Institution which was the common property of all the 
States; and she had the right to demand that those she had thus 
educated should devote all their powers to her service. She, and 
she alone, had trained and armed them for efficient service, and it 
was hers to command ; theirs to obey her voice. Whatever excuse 
may be made for Northern men who took part against the South 
in the late war, there certainly can be none for those of the South 
who, educated by their native States, turned against the bosoms of 
their mothers those weapons which they had been taught by them 
how to wield ! This charge against Gen. Lee does not deserve 
refutation, but for the fact that it has been dwelt on persistently 
by those whose malice could frame no other accusation to impugn 
his conduct, or to tarnish his spotless reputation. If it was a crime 
in him to obey the voice of his native State, to cling to her with a 
2 



18 

filial reverence no temptation could shake, no trial weaken, we at 
least — the people for whom he fought — and in whose cause he 
sacrificed all, can readily pardon the offence, for we know the 
strength and the depth of that love, " passing the love of woman," 
that bound him and binds ns to our natal soil. 

" Land of my sires ! what mortal hand 
Can e'er untie the filial band, 
That knits me to thy rugged strand ? 
Still as I view each well-known scene, 
Think what is now, and what hath been, 
Seems as to me, of all bereft, 
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; 
And thus I love thee better still, 
Even in extremity of ill." 

It was this ardent love of countcy, combined with a strong sense 
of duty, that impelled Gen. Lee to take part with the South. 
Greatly as he deprecated a resort to arms, and recognizing, as he 
said, " no necessity for this state of things," he foresaw the impend- 
ing storm of Avar, and he could not but know that the eyes of his 
countrymen were turned on him as a fit military leader in the 
coming struggle. That he had anticipated and was prepared to 
receive a call to service from Virginia, is evident from an expres- 
sion which, with slight variation, appears in both of his letters, to 
which allusion has been made. "Save in defence of my native 
State, I never again desire to draw my sword," was the language 
he used to Gen. Scott in his letter of resignation. This implied 
a willingness to draw that sword whenever Virginia commanded 
him to do so, and he repaired to Richmond fully prepared to 
devote his sword, his services, his life, to the cause which his State 
had espoused. 

As soon as the resignation of his commission became known in 
Virginia, the Governor of the State appointed him to the com- 
mand of all its military forces, with the rank of Major-General, 
and this appointment was unanimously confirmed by the sovereign 
power of the State, in Convention assembled. To invest this action 



19 

with all dignity and solemnity Gen. Lee was presented to the Con- 
vention, and the President, in an address singularly felicitous in 
manner and language, notified him of his appointment, and told 
him that Virginia, on that day, committed her spotless sword to 
his keeping. The reply of Gen. Lee, characterized by the modesty 
and simplicity which marked his every action, was in the follow- 
ing words : 

" Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. Profoundly 
impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, for which I must 
say I was not prepared, I accept the position assigned me by your 
partiality; I would have much preferred had your choice fallen 
upon an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an approving 
conscience, and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I devote myself to 
the service of my native State, in whose behalf alone, will I ever 
again draw my sword." From this time until Virginia became a 
member of the Southern Confederacy, Gen. Lee devoted all his 
energies to the task of organizing the forces of the State and 
putting it in a proper condition of defence. 

Soon after the Confederate Congress met in Richmond, Generals 
Cooper, A. S. Johnston, Lee, J. E. Johnston and Beuregard, were 
appointed Generals, ranking in the order in which they have just 
been named. Gen. Lee was not called on to take an active part 
in the earliest operations in Virginia, nor did he participate in the 
first rude shocks of those great armies which then began to crim- 
son her soil with that precious blood, afterwards so lavishly, and 
alas ! so fruitlessly poured out in her defence. It was not until 
the autumn of 1801, that he was assigned to duty in the field, 
when he was sent to supervise and harmonize operations in West- 
ern Virginia. The campaign in this quarter was not successful, 
and a few of those acute military critics, who, from their safe 
retreats in newspaper offices, used to tell us glibly, how fields 
should be won, censured Gen. Lee for this failure. In the 
absence of all official documents, all of which have been lost cr 
destroyed, it would be palpably unjust to cast any blame on him 
for the conduct of this campaign. But one man now living, can 



20 

speak knowingly and authoritatively on this subject, — the great 
statesman and pure patriot, who then presided over the destinies 
of our young Republic: he who, after dedicating himself body, 
and heart, and soul, to the cause in which we fought, has lived to 
bear vicariously for us in his own person, with the sublime endur- 
ance of a martyr, the sufferings, the humiliations, the wrongs of 
the whole South ; need I name him my friends? Does not every 
heart in the South instinctively frame the answer, and does not 
every tongue utter the name, of Jefferson Davis? He has spoken 
on this point, and spoken in no doubtful or uncertain tones, and to 
him I leave the vindication of Gen. Lee, in this, the only instance 
in which one breath of hostile criticism has ever risen from the 
South. When standing by the grave which had just closed over 
our great Captain, Mr. Davis, while paying a noble tribute to his 
memory, referred to this part of his military career in the follow- 
ing language : " When Virginia joined the Confederacy, Robert 
Lee, the highest officer in the little army of Virginia, came to 
Richmond, and not pausing to enquire what would be his rank in 
the service of the Confederacy, went to Western Virginia under 
the belief that he was still an officer uf the State. He came back 
carrying the heavy weight of defeat, and unappreciated by the 
people whom he served, for they could not know as I knew, that 
if his plans and orders had been carried out, the result would have 
been victory rather than retreat. You did not know, for I would 
not have known it, had he not breathed it in my ear, only at my 
earnest request, and begging that nothing be said about it. * * * 
Yet through all this, with a magnanimity rarely equalled, he stood 
in silence without defending himself or allowing others to defend 
him, for he was unwilling to offend any one who was wearing a 
sword and striking blows for the Confederacy." 

No other justification of Gen. Lee's conduct in this campaign is 
needed, as none can be more full and conclusive than that given 
by the highest officer of the Confederacy. It may perhaps be a 
matter of some interest as bearing on this point, to relate a remark 
made by Mr. Davis while this campaign was proceeding. Refer- 



21 

ring to the senseless criticisms made by one of the Richmond 
papers on Gen. Lee, and speaking of the false estimate in which 
his character as a military man was held, he said: "Lee is the i 
boldest officer in the Confederate service ; boldest, not only in 
conception, but in execution." It is but justice to these two dis- I 
tinguished men that this opinion of the one — an opinion so fully 
verified by the subsequent career of the other — should be placed 
on record as showing the confidence reposed then, and never with- 
drawn, by the Chief Magistrate of the Confederacy, in him who 
was destined to be the grand central figure in that great group of 
gallant soldiers, who fought for the South. 

After his return from Western Virginia, Gen. Lee was ordered 
to South Carolina and Georgia, to superintend the coast defences 
in those States, and he remained there until the Spring of 1862. 
lie was then recalled to Richmond, and was, by a general order, 
dated March 13th, "assigned to duty at the seat of Government, 
and under direction of the President, charged with the conduct of 
military operations in the armies of the Confederacy." In this 
position he remained until an accident opened the way for the 
more immediate display of that mighty military genius which has 
covered his name, and his country with eternal honor. The great 
soldier who had hitherto commanded with such signal ability, the 
army in Virginia — Gen. Johnston — having been severely wounded '< 
in the Battle of Seven Pines, on the 31st May, Gen. Lee was 
appointed to succeed him, and assumed command on the 2d June. 
From this time until the close of the war, the history of Gen. Lee, 
is the history of the immortal Army of Northern Virginia — that 
noblest army that ever trod this earth. To record the unparalleled 
achievements of that army while directed by the genius of Lee, 
would be a task far too great to come within the scope of an ad- 
dress such as the present. That wondrous story — than which no 
brighter has ever been traced on the page of history, belongs to 
the historian. It will be his to unfold to our wondering posterity 
that grand panorama whereon is portrayed this " bloodiest picture 
in the book of time." He will tell of the constant sufferings 



22 

— the devoted patriotism — the unflinching courage — the heroic 
deeds of that noble army, as its groat Captain led it from victory 
to victory, in such rapid succession, that the world stood amazed 
alike at the prowess of the men, and the genius of the Comman- 
der. All these details pertain to the great drama upon which the 
curtain has just fallen, and they go to make history. But without 
encroaching on the domain of the historian, it may be permitted 
to me, to recall to your remembrance as briefly as may be, the 
j3rominent features which marked these last three terrific years of 
war, and gave to Lee the place he holds among the great soldiers 
of the world. 

It is with a due sense of the difficulties attending this mode of 
treating this subject that it is adopted, but the theme is too vast to 
allow me to treat it otherwise. Nor is the time propitious for a 
full discussion of all the issues involved. It was the remark of an 
acute critic, when dissuading Swift from publishing his History of 
Queen Anne, "that the period of which he treated was too remote 
for a pamphlet, yet too early for a history." Thus it is in the 
present case, for only those events which exercised a controlling 
influence on our great struggle, and, at the same time, illustrated 
the character of Lee, can be touched on here. With even this 
restriction, the field is vast, the subject grand. Do you not re- 
member — what Southern heart can ever forget — how Lee, called 
unexpectedly from his duties in the Cabinet, to lead an army to 
which he was an entire stranger, grasped that army at once, with 
the hand of a giant, and hurled it with the force of a thunder-bolt 
upon his enemy, driving him in the great fights of the "seven 
days," demoralized and defeated, to seek ignominious shelter under 
the fire of his gunboats? These were the first operations of Gen. 
Lee on a suitable field for the display of his powers, and the result 
was a magnificent success. The enemy who had been threatening 
Richmond were driven, by the combination of brilliant strategy on 
the part of the Southern Commander and desperate valor on the 
part of the Southern troops, to seek safety in flight; our people 
were relieved of a great anxiety, — and our soldiers — those best 



23 

judges — felt that they were once again in the hands of a great Cap- 
tain — one whose genius had already gained the confidence, as his 
kindness was soon to win the love they had cherished for their 
former leader.* 

Leaving this subject, however, to follow the career of Lee, every 
step of which is illumined by glory, we see him hurrying from 
the James River, where one defeated army was cowering under 
protection of gunboats, to meet another army on the Rappahan- 
nock, which was marching "on to Richmond." These troops, 
from whom the Federal Government expected results of the 
utmost importance, had been placed under the command of Pope, 
who will be deservedly damned to everlasting fame, for the bru- 
tality of his orders and for inaugurating a system of warfare, which 
was properly denounced by an English journal at the time as 
"casting mankind two centuries back toward barbarism." Easily 
foiling this new pretender to military fame, Lee brought him to 
battle on the historic field of Manassas, where Southern arms were 
again crowned with the glory that had once before been shed upon 
them on the same spot. Following up this brilliant victory, Lee 
struck the Federal Army again at Chantilly, and drove it in con- 
fusion into the fortifications of Washington, where its brutal and 
braggart commander sunk at once into the insignificance from 
which only his own presumption had ever raised him. Thus it 



* Before following Lee in his subsequent operations, it may be well to notice a 
criticism which has been made on his first. It has been said that by throwing the 
bulk of his force across the Chickahominy, on the right flank of the Federal Army, 
■while he left only twenty-five thouand (25,000) men before Richmond, confronting 
McClellan, he exposed the city to the danger of capture. It is a sufficient answer to 
this criticism to say that Gen. Lee has expressed the opinion that no such danger 
was to be apprehended, but as discussion on this point lias arisen, it may not be out 
of place to show how well founded was this opinion. There were, as has been said 
twenty-five thousand (25,000) troops left in the lines around Richmond, when Gen. 
Lee moved to the North of the Chickahominy. Kow putting out of the question the 
fact that the Federal Commander could not possibly have known what force was left 
in his front, it was his obvious duty as a good soldier to reenforce tbat portion of his 
line assailed, and to endeaver to maintain his position and his communications, both 
of which were seriously threatened by the attack on his right. But supposing that 
he had left tbat portion of his army on the North of the river to its fate, and had con. 
centrated all tbe troops on the South of the stream to assault the city, could he rea- 



24 

will be seen that Lee, in the short space of two months, with a 
force at no time exceeding seventy-five thousand (75,000) men, 
defeated in repeated engagements two Federal armies, each of 
which was not less than one hundred and twenty thousand 
(120,000) strong, relieved the Southern Capital from danger, 
and even threatened that of the North. But the campaign, 
great as it had been, was not to end here. Throwing his army 
into Maryland, Lee swept down from that State on Harper's 
Ferry, capturing it with its garrison of eleven thousand (11,000) 
men, and seventy-two (72) guns, and then again concentrating his 
troops on the North of the Potomac, he fought the brilliant and 
bloody battle of Sharpsburg. In this great fight — for great it 
was, though the Southern Arms failed to gain so decisive a vic- 
tory as had so generally attended them — Lee, with only thirty- 
seven thousand (37,000) men, repulsed every attack of the enemy, 
who brought into the field an army three times as strong as his 
own. Is this not glory enough for one campaign, — for one 
army, — for one man ? Yet the story of these great deeds is scarce 
begun — the glory not yet at its zenith. Before even this campaign 
ended "Fredericksburg" was to be inscribed on those Southern 
Banners, which were already so covered by the names of victories 
as scarcely to leave room for another. 

But, before turning to the field just named, it will be well to 
see what the hero, who won the successes already mentioned, has 



sonably have hoped for success? A glance at the map will show, that a line less 
than five miles long drawn from the James river and running Northeast would have 
covered every approach to the city, and would have extended some distance North 
of the New Bridge road. This road, together with the bridge and all the bridges and 
fords above, was in the possession of Lee. There were men enough before Richmond 
to man the line already indicated fully, and no line so manned by the Army of 
Northern Virginia was ever broken by the Federal Army. Had McClellan, there- 
fore, resorted to the desperate measure of assaulting Richmond, he would have been 
compelled, not only to encounter a force of twenty-five thousand (25,000) men posted 
behind strong works, but to expose the right flank of his army to the danger of an 
attack from the victorious troop3 of Lee, who could readily have been thrown across 
the Chickahominy, before the lines around the city could have been forced. It ap- 
pears to me, therefore, that McClellan adopted the only course that promised to save 
his army, and the generalship he displayed during all the movements of that bloody 
week, marks him as the ablest, as he certainly was, the most honorable Commander 
the Federal Army ever had. 



25 

said of them. In one of these General Orders, which always car- 
ried, even to our enemies, conviction of their truth, he tendered 
his thanks to his army, in the following simple and modest lan- 
guage : 

"Head-Quarters, A. N.Va., Oct. 2d, 18G2. 
"General Order, No. 116. 

"In reviewing the achievements of the army during the present 
campaign, the Commanding General cannot withhold the expres- 
sion of the admiration of the indomitable courage it has displayed 
iu battle, and its cheerful endurance of privation and hardship on 
the march. Since your great victories around Richmond, you 
have defeated the enemy at Cedar Mountain, expelled him from 
the Rappahannock, and, after a conflict of three days, utterly re- 
pulsed him on the plains of Manassas, and forced him to take 
shelter within the fortifications around his capital. Without halt- 
ing for repose, you crossed the Potomac, stormed the heights of 
Harper's Ferry, made prisoners of more than eleven thousand 
(11,000) men, and captured upwards of seventy (70) pieces of 
artillery, all their small arms and other munitions of war. While 
one Corps of the army was thus engaged, the other insured its 
success by arresting, at Boonsboro', the combined armies of the 
enemy advancing, under their favorite General, to the relief of 
their beleaguered comrades. On the field of Sharpsburg, with less 
than one-third his numbers, you resisted from daylight until dark 
the whole army of the enemy, and repulsed every attack along his 
entire front of more than four miles in extent. The whole of the 
following day you stood prepared to resume the conflict on the 
same ground, and retired next morning, without molestation, 
across the Potomac. Two attempts, subsequently made by the 
enemy, to follow you across the river have resulted in his com- 
plete discomfiture, each being driven back with loss. Achieve- 
ments such as these demanded much valor and patriotism. 

" History records few examples of greater fortitude and endur- 
ance than this army has exhibited ; and I am commissioned by 



26 

the President, to thank yon in the name of the Confederate States, 
for the undying fame you have won for their arms. Much as you 
have done, much more remains to be accomplished. The enemy 
again threatens us with invasion, and to your tried valor and 
patriotism, the country looks with confidence for deliverance and 
safety. Your past exploits give assurance that this confidence is 
not misplaced. 

"R. E. Lee, GenH Com'g." 

These words, brieT and simple as they are, record deeds rarely 
equalled. What was accomplished by Lee in the brief period em- 
braced in this order will be more readily comprehended by giving 
the actual results of the campaign. These were, besides a series of 
brilliant victories to the Confederate arms, losses to the enemy of 
seventy-five thousand (75,00.0) men, one hundred and fifty-four 
(154) pieces of artillery, and seventy thousand (70,000) small 
arms.- If to this list, so glorious to the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, be added the Federal loss in the battle of Fredericksburg, 
we shall have the enormous number of eighty-seven thousand, five 
hundred (87,500) men, killed, wounded, and captured, by this 
army in one short campaign. 

After the battle of Sharpsburg, the troops had a short period of 
repose in the Valley of Virginia, but movements on the part of 
the enemy soon rendered it necessary for Gen. Lee to put his 
columns once more in motion. About this time McClellan, who 
had always been governed by the laws of war as recognized among 
civilized nations, was superseded by Burnside, in command of the 
Army of the Potomac. The new commander determined to occupy 
Fredericksburg, in order to secure good winter quarters for his 
troops, near his base of supplies. His movement looking to this 
object was detected by Lee, and when the Federal Army was con- 
centrated on the Heights of Stafford, preparatory to crossing the 
river, Burnside found his able antagonist confronting him on that 
field, which was soon to be made memorable as the scene of one 
of his most brilliant victories. Foiled in his attempt to secure a 



27 

strong position on the south bank of the river, Burnside deter- 
mined to attack Lee in position. As the heavy fog, which hid 
both armies on the morning of the 13th of December, slowly 
drifted off, the Federal troops were seen moving to attack the 
Confederate right, held by Jackson. The story of that assault 
is soon told ; it is the story of all the fields where Stonewall 
Jackson fought. Boldly as the assault was made, it met a sud- 
den and bloody repulse; nor was it again renewed on that portion 
of the line. The sound of the guns engaged here had scarce ceased, 
when the deep roar of artillery on our left told that the enemy 
were sweeping on in the first of those desperate charges, which left 
half of their assaulting columns dead and wounded belore Marye's 
fatal hill. All efforts to storm this position were repulsed with 
terrific slaughter, and night fell on a field over which the Southern 
cross floated in triumph; fit termination of a campaign seldom 
equalled in the magnitude and glory of its achievements. One 
result of this battle, a result which had followed every engagement 
between the two armies, was the removal of the Federal Com- 
mander, who was superseded by Hooker. This officer spent the 
residue of the Winter in reorganizing his discomfited and dispirited 
army, so that when Spring opened he was prepared to take the 
field with one hundred and forty thousand (140,000) men, fully 
equipped, and constituting, in his opinion at least, "the finest 
army on the planet." Lee still occupied his old position near 
Fredericksburg, with a force of less than forty-five thousand 
(45,000) men, Longstreet's corps having been sent to the south 
of the James River. Availing himself of the absence of this 
corps, Hooker determined to turn Lee's left, which would force 
him — in the language employed on this occasion by the Federal 
Commander — to " either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind 
his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where certain 
destruction awaits him." These were the boastful words in which 
he — forgetful of the example of Pope, and unmindful of, if he ever 
knew, the Scriptural injunction, "let not him that girdeth on his 
harness boast himself as he that putteth it off" — addressed his 



28 

troops. In order to cover his real movement he -crossed one por- 
tion of his army to the south side of the river, below Fredericks- 
burg, and with the rest of his command he passed the Rappahan- 
nock and Rapidan above their junction, concentrating his troops 
at Chancellorsville, on the 30th of April* 

As soon as Hooker had drawn his columns together, our great 
Captain moved to meet him. No operations of his are marked by 
greater boldness, celerity and brilliancy than those attending that 
terrific conflict, which was soon to light up, with the fires of death, 
the gloom of that great Wilderness, which held in its dark recesses 
the two hostile armies, on that eventful night of the 30th of April. 
Leaving Early with a small force, to hold in check the enemy, who 
was threatening Fredericksburg from below, Lee boldly threw the 
rest of his army against Hooker. The conduct of this movement 
was committed to his great Lieutenant, who was destined to fall 
on this his most glorious, but to us fatal field, where victory was 
dearly purchased by the life-blood of Jackson ! 

Marching all the night of the 30th, Jackson encountered the 
enemy at nine o'clock on the morning of the 1st of May, and he 
immediately proceeded to carry out the order of Lee, which was 
to "attack and repulse the enemy." When Hooker found that 
Lee had "come out of his defences to give battle" instead of " in- 
gloriously flying," he seems to have lost what little head he ever 
had, and he at once retreated to Chancellorsville, where he began 
to fortify his position. The strange spectacle was thus presented, 
of an army more than eighty thousand (80,000) strong, which had 
moved out only the day previous in the confident assurance of 



* Before giving the result of the great battle that followed, it may be proper to 
correct a misapprehension which exists to a certain extent, that Hooker, by this 
movement, took Gen. Lee by surprise. Personal knowledge of the fact, enables me 
assert that he was not surprised, but that he had anticipated this movement and 
"was prepared for it. From information obtained in various reconnoisances within 
the lines of the enemy, I was led to believe that the next effort would be made 
against our left. This information, and the deductions drawn from it, were com- 
municated to Gen. Lee, through Gen. Stuart. Acting upon the communication, the 
former made a full personal inspection of the points threatened; after which he 
expressed himself as perfectly satisfied of his ability to defeat any movement from 
those directions. 



29 

victory, covering itself with breastworks and two hundred (200) 
pieces of artillery, to save itself from a force not half its number. 
And if any thing could add to the strangeness of this spectacle, it 
was the fact that this small attacking army had in its rear another 
body of the enemy of not less than thirty thousand (30,000) 
troops ! But critical as was Lee's position, he was equal to the 
emergency. With a small force, he threatened the enemy in front, 
while Jackson was sent to turn his left flank. That success at- 
tended this movement, it is scarcely necessary to say, for Jackson 
conducted it. Plunging into the gloomy depths of the great forest, 
he passed with his usual rapidity and secrecy across the whole front 
of the enemy and at five o'clock in the afternoon he was com- 
pletely in rear of his right flank. While Hooker was busy con- 
gratulating his army in foolish orders, on having turned Lee's left 
flank, Lee had effectually turned his right, and was ready to strike 
one of those heavy blows he so often dealt. As soon as Jackson 
gained the position he desired, he struck the enemy with his accus- 
tomed irresistible impetuosity and his tried veterans, led in person 
by their beloved chief, swept every thing before them. But the 
very vigor of their attack and the ardor of their pursuit produced 
confusion in their ranks, and owing to the darkness of the night 
it became necessary to halt, to reform their line. Fatal pause ! 
For at that moment Jackson, who had ridden forward to examine 
the position of the enemy, was fired on by his own troops, and fell 
in the very hour of victory, struck down by the men, who would 
willingly have given their own lives to save his. Lee had lost 
"his right arm," and the South a soldier whose very name was a 
tower of strength to her and a terror to her enemies. An English 
writer — one who distinguished himself as an officer in the Crimean 
War — has so happily drawn the character of this great soldier, 
that I cannot refrain from quoting the language applied to him, 
for even at the grave of Lee, the South drops a tear to the memory 
of Jackson. Speaking of Virginia, this writer says: "She has 
given to the country a hero whose name will last to the end of 
time, as an instance of the combination of the most adventurous 



30 

and at the same time, felicitous daring as a soldier — the most self- 
sacrificing devotion as a patriot, and the most exalted character as 
a man — one who could unite the virtues of the Cavalier and of the 
Round-head without the faults of either, and be at once a Have- 
loch and a Garabaldi." The fall of Jackson stopped the farther 
pursuit of the enemy, and this cessation saved the Federal Army 
from utter destruction. Stuart was placed in command of Jack- 
son's Corps and as he was unacquainted with the ground or the 
position of the troops, he deferred the renewal of the attack until 
the next morning. In the meantime the Federal position had 
been greatly strengthened, while their force had been increased by 
the arrival of a fresh corps. As the first rays of the sun began to 
pierce the heavy cloud of smoke left by the last night's battle the 
Southern troops, shouting "remember Jackson," threw themselves 
against the breastworks, bristling with artillery and steel. The 
struggle was obstinate and doubtful, until Lee, who had grad- 
ually extended his left, formed a junction with the Corps of Jack- 
son, when placing himself at the head of the combined forces, he 
stormed the works, and drove the enemy in complete rout to seek 
shelter behind an interior line of fortification. Lee immediately 
prepared to carry these works, and thus destroy at one great blow, 
the already defeated Federal army. But this blow was arrested, 
just as it was about to fall, by the information that a force almost 
as strong as his own, was advancing to attack him in rear. In 
his front was an army still double his own, while another was 
threatening to strike him in the rear. This was a condition of 
things to call for the exercise of the highest military qualities, and 
the genius of Lee proved adequate to the demand made on it. 
Taking a few brigades, he moved to meet the advancing enemy 
and drove him across the Rappahannock, on Monday night. The 
next day he hastened back to crush Hooker, but the bird had 
flown — "the finest army on the planet" had vanished for "rea- 
sons well known to that army," as their Commander delicately 
expressed it, leaving as the only mementoes of their proud advance 
seventeen thousand (17,000) of their number on the battle-field, 



31 

together with fourteen (14) guns and twenty thousand (20,000) 
small arms. This battle, or rather series of battles, has been dwelt 
on at greater length than the preceding ones, because the ability 
displayed by Lee on this memorable occasion was of the very 
highest order, and because of the mournful interest that will 
always link the genius and the fate of Jackson with this glorious 
field. 

After the signal defeat of Hooker both armies resumed their 
former positions, and two plans for future operations presented 
themselves to Gen. Lee. One was to wait in his lines another 
attack from the enemy, and the other was to draw him, by skilful 
manceuvering, from his strong and threatening position. The first 
named plan was open to so many grave objections that he preferred 
the latter, full of risk though it was. In accordance with this 
determination he put his troops in motion on the 3d of June, and 
threw Longstreet's Corps round to Culpepper C. H. Ewell, who 
had succeeded Jackson, followed Longstreet, while the 3d Corps, 
which had recently been organized and placed under A. P. Hill, 
remained at Fredericksburg, in observation of the enemy. The 
Federal Commander seemed totally unable to comprehend the 
movements of his enemy, and he halted for sometime in his old 
position. 

While he was hesitating, Lee had sent Ewell to the Valley, 
where he captured Winchester and Martinsburg, destroying the 
entire force holding these places. About four thousand (4,000) 
prisoners, many small arms and stores, with twenty-nine (29) 
guns, were the trophies which fell into Ewell's hands, while the 
Valley was freed from the enemy. Besides these substantial fruits 
of victory, command of the roads across the Potomac was ob- 
tained, thus enabling Gen. Lee to transfer the seat of war from 
Virginia to Maryland or Pennsylvania. He was not slow to 
avail himself of this opportunity, and on the 24th of June, the 
two corps present with him were thrown across the river, Long- 
street crossing at Williamsport, and Hill, at Shepardstown. Ewell, 
who had crossed two days previously, occupied Chambersburg, on 



32 

the 23d, when the whole of the infantry was concentrated on the 
27th. The cavalry had unfortunately been left in Virginia, and 
its absence was severely felt by Gen. Lee, as he needed it to mask 
the movements of his infantry, and to obtain information. 

The first act of Gen. Lee, upon entering the country of the 
enemy, was the publication of the following noble address to his 
troops, dated 

"Ciiambersburg, June 27th, 18G3. 

" The Commanding General has observed with marked satis- 
faction, the conduct of the troops on the march, and confidently 
anticipates results commensurate with the high spirit they have 
manifested. No troops could have displayed greater fortitude, or 
better performed the arduous duties of the past ten days. Their 
conduct in other respects has, with few exceptions, been in keeping 
with their character as soldiers, and entitles them to approbation 
and praise. There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness 
on the part of some, that they have in keeping, the yet unsullied 
reputation of the army, and that the duties exacted of us by civili- 
zation and Christianity, are not less obligatory in the country of 
the enemy than in our own. The Commanding General considers 
that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our 
whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon 
the innocent and the defenceless, and the wanton destruction of 
private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our 
own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators 
and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline 
and efficiency of the army, and destructive of the ends of our 
present movements. 

" It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed 
men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people 
have suffered, without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose 
abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemy, and 
offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, and without 
whose favor and support, our efforts must all prove in vain. 



33 

"The Commanding General, therefore, earnestly exhorts the 
troops to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary or 
wanton injury to private property; and he enjoins upon all officers 
to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall, in any 
way, offend against the orders on this subject. 

"R. E. Lee, General" 

This order, pervaded as it is by the spirit of Christianity and 
the dictates of humanity, confers greater glory on its author than 
the most brilliant of his victories, for it shows how solicitous he 
was to mitigate the horrors of war. Coming from one, whose own 
" beloved home " had been despoiled and desecrated ; who had 
seen his country subjected to a fate which finds no parallel in the 
history of civilized warfare, save in the cruel devastation of the 
Palatinate ; who had witnessed the perpetration of atrocities at 
which humanity shudders, and who was at the head of a victori- 
ous army, every man of which had in his own person, or the per- 
sons of his kindred, felt these unutterable atrocities, — it constitutes 
the brightest jewel in that crown of glory which Lee has won for 
himself. Well may the South be proud of the leader who, when 
time and opportunity held out the alluring temptation of inflicting 
merited retaliation, could restrain the angry passions of his men 
by appealing to their unsullied reputation, and by reminding them 
that "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay." Nor 
can anything prove more fully the influence Gen. Lee had over 
his men, than the fact, creditable alike to the Commander and to 
the army, that his order was most scrupulously obeyed. But the 
sublime lesson of generosity and magnanimity he gave on this 
occasion was, unfortunately, lost upon the enemy, as his subse- 
quent conduct show r ed, for South Carolina and Virginia were con- 
verted into deserts wherever his army penetrated. This conduct 
on the part of the enemy, however, only brings out in stronger 
and brighter colors, the character of Lee, for 

" Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime; " 



34 

and defeated as we are, we would rather that fate should be ours, 
than to have been successful by the perpetration of evil deeds, or 
the commission of crimes, which would forever have stained our 
cause and disgraced our triumph ! 

Lee had his army concentrated at Chambersburg, on the 27th of 
June, as has been said, but owing to the unfortunate absence of his 
cavalry, he had received no accurate information of the movements 
of the enemy. This, as he has himself said, embarrassed him 
greatly, and was the real cause of his fighting the battle of Gettys- 
burg. There can be no doubt that Gen. Lee, when he invaded 
Pennsylvania did not intend to deliver battle unless the advan- 
tages of position were in his favor, and these, he had every reason 
to suppose, his superior skill could enable him to secure. But 
unadvised of the movements of his enemy, until the 29th, he found 
himself then forced to fight or to retire. The latter could not be 
done without sacrificing all the benefits he hoped to reap from his 
expedition, nor would such a course have accorded with his own 
wishes or those of his troops. "Whatever course was to be adopted 
the first imperative necessity was the rapid concentration of his 
army, which had been divided, and while this was being effected, 
the heads of the two hostile columns came into collision at Gettys- 
burg, on the 1st of July. This rendered a battle inevitable, and 
Lee prepared immediately and willingly for the conflict. Two 
plans of battle presented themselves to the Confederate Comman- 
der ; one was to move by his right flank, and by interposing 
between Meade and Washington, force the enemy to give up his 
strong position, when he would be compelled to attack or fall back 
on his Capital ; the other was to attempt to break the centre of 
the enemy and throw both wings of his defeated army off from 
their line of communications. The latter was the boldest plan, 
the one promising the greatest results in case of success, and this 
Lee adopted. 

It would be impossible, in the space allotted to this discourse, 
to give the details of that terrific battle which shook, for three 
days, as with the throes of an earthquake, the hills and valleys of 



35 

Gettysburg. The world already knows the bloody story of that 
great fight. It knows with what desperate valor the Southern 
troops threw themselves against those inaccessible heights, frown' 
ing with artillery, and bristling with bayonets ; how, during the 
two first days, they forced the enemy from many of his strong 
positions and held the ground ,they had so dearly won by their 
blood ; how, on the third day, when the final death struggle took 
place, they planted their Banners in the last strong-hold of the 
enemy, but, exhausted by their desperate efforts, had not the 
strength to hold the crest they had so bravely gained ; and how, 
falling back slowly to their own position, they awaited sternly an 
attack from the foe. But that foe had no heart, nor strength, to 
assault the bleeding, but indomitable, line so defiantly confronting 
him. It is true, that the Southern Army had, for the first time, 
failed to accomplish all it had attempted ; but, though falling 
short of complete success, no sign of defeat, or of demoralization, 
or of doubt, was visible in its torn, but unconquered, ranks. It 
had done all that valor could do : it had driven a largely superior 
enemy from many of his strong positions : it had captured prison- 
ers and artillery, while inflicting a loss of twenty-four thousand 
(24,000) men on him : and, but for the accident that prevented a 
coucert of action along the whole line, in the last great charge, it 
would have made the battle, instead of a drawn fight, another 
glorious victory to its arms. The Federal Army was not only 
content, but rejoiced to accept this issue of the conflict, an issue to 
which it had been so little accustomed, and Meade deserves credit 
for having been able in his first battle, to check among his troops, 
what Wellington, when speaking of his Spanish allies, called "the 
habit of running away." 

Grand as Lee had always appeared when victory sat upon his 
banners, he was grander still, when his bleeding columns slowly 
and sullenly fell back from that fatal hill which they had won, 
but could not hold. No rebuke, not even an impatient gesture, 
nor an angry word, met his tried and devoted veterans, as they 
moved defiantly back. Riding to meet them amid the storm of 



36 

shot and shell, he cheered and encouraged them by words of 
almost fatherly affection, and rising far above all personal con- 
siderations, he had the magnanimity to exclaim : " This is my 
fault; it is I who have lost this fight." Noble words; which 
should win for his character greater admiration than any victory 
could have bestowed ! 

The great struggle was over; Lee had failed to crush his 
enemy, but he had left him too weak to strike back. Failing 
however of full success, with his ammunition exhausted, his 
communications threatened, he had no alternative but to with- 
draw to some position nearer his base. Maintaining his line in 
front of the enemy for twenty-four hours, inviting an attack, 
he then withdrew, without any attempt on the part of the enemy 
to molest him. Reaching the Potomac on the 7th, he found 
the river too much swollen to allow him to cross. Apparently 
not in the least disconcerted by this circumstance, which certainly 
would have been most alarming had his army been a defeated one, 
he took position and prepared for battle. Meade's pursuit, if it 
can be called such, did not bring him in presence of Lee until the 
12th, when he immediately began to entrench. His army had 
been largely reenforced, but he wisely determined not to attack 
Lee, for the wounded lion was at bay, and his spring might yet 
prove fatal. The river was found low enough on the 13th to be 
forded, the pontoon bridge was ready on the same day, and on 
the 14th Lee crossed safely into Virginia. The campaign of 18G3 
virtually ended here, though there were several unimportant move- 
ments on the part of both armies, during the next few months, 
ending with Meade's abortive attempt to force the Southern line 
at Mine Run, on the 28th of November. 

The opening of the next campaign found Lee, on the 1st of 
May, 1864, on the southern bank of the Rapidan, his encamp- 
ments extending from that river to Gordonsville. The desperate 
fighting of the last two years, the insufficient supply of food, and 
the barbarous policy of the Federal Government in refusing to 
exchange prisoners, had reduced the Army of Northern Virginia 



37 

to less than forty-five thousand (45,000) men at this time. This 
statement of its numbers was received directly from Gen. Lee him- 
self, so there can be no question of its correctness. Opposed to 
this small army was a force upwards of one hundred and forty 
thousand (140,000) strong, thoroughly equipped, and with inex- 
haustible resources upon which to draw. The Federal Govern- 
ment had given the control of all military operations to Gen. 
Grant, an officer who, thrown by accident to the surface, had the 
additional good fortune to rise there, when the resources of the 
Confederacy were well-nigh exhausted. He is said to have ex- 
pressed a profound contempt for what had hitherto been regarded 
as one of the surest indications of an able Commander — skilful 
manceuvering — and he placed his whole reliance in using superior 
numbers, "to hammer continuously until by mere attrition" his 
enemy would be crushed. This system, looking as it does for 
success only to the employment of brute force, requires rather the 
strength that numbers give, than the genius of the soldier, but the 
bloody sacrifice of lives it involved was a matter of slight conse- 
quence to the Federal Government, so long as the mercenaries of 
Europe and the slaves of the South could be used as substitutes 
for the patriots of the North, who could thus fight safely for the 
Constitution and the Union. But the South, cut off from all 
foreign aid, — with the ear of the world closed against her by the 
misrepresentations of her enemies — surrounded on all sides by 
danger — subjected to treatment which violated every principle of 
civilized warfare — with thousands of her sons sleeping beneath 
the soil they had died to defend, or by a worse fate, perishing 
in Northern prisons — had no resources save in those heroic armies 
which had so long upheld the cause of their country. Hardships, 
starvation and the bullets of the enemy were diminishing these 
daily, and she had no mercenaries to fight battles for her sons. 
All that she could do was to fight as long as one ray of hope 
was left to cheer her, and this she did do. The end was not far 
off, but before it came the Army of Northern Virginia was des- 
tined to leave to history a record of glory as bright as the brightest 



38 

inscribed on its pages, and Lee was in his last campaign to surpass 
even his former achievements. But how can the story of these 
achievements be told in a few hurried pages? When Gen. Lee 
was asked, soon after the war, if he intended to publish any his- 
tory of its events, his reply was that the time had not yet come to 
give the whole truth concerning our struggle; for if given now, 
the world could scarce credit the strange story. If he who was 
the chief actor in those mighty events, who knew not only all that 
was done, but the hidden springs of action, thought it best to post- 
pone the duty he had proposed to himself of recording the deeds 
of his army in its last campaign, well may any feebler hand shrink 
from the attempt. Mine certainly does, all unequal as it is to the 
task, and I can only pass before you in rapid review, a few of the 
many great actions which made this one of the grandest — if not 
the grandest — campaign of modern times. 

The relative positions of the two armies have been stated, as 
well as the condition of each. Grant, in pursuance of the plan he 
had adopted, moved across the Rapidan on the 4th of May, with 
a view to turn Lee's right flank, and thus force him to fall back 
on Richmond. His passage of the river was unobstructed, which 
he regarded as a great success. Lee, had he chosen to do so, could 
have struck him then, for he had been apprised from Washington 
of the contemplated movement, as well as of the numbers of his 
enemy. He preferred however to draw Grant into the tangled 
depths of the Wilderness, before delivering the blow he meditated. 
As soon therefore as the Federal Army had penetrated the forest, 
Lee, not regarding his vast inferiority of numbers, threw his small 
but determined army on the vast force that had come to crush 
him. Once again the deep solitude of these dark woods which 
had been shaken by the thunders of Chancellorsville, was broken 
by the scream of shot and shell, and the roll of musketry; the 
struggle was long, bloody and obstinate, but Southern arms, as on 
many another gory field, overcame the disparity of numbers, and 
were crowned with success. The enemy, in a contest of two days, 
was repulsed on all sides, and Grant's first move had ended in 



39 

discomfiture. Severe as was the loss sustained by the Federal 
Army on this occasion, it would have been much heavier, if 
not destructive, but for the recurrence of the same unfortunate 
accident which, on nearly the same ground, snatched from the 
hand of Jackson the richest fruits of victory at Chancellorsville. 
Longstreet had turned and routed the left flank of the enemy, 
and as he was forming his invincible corps for the final charge, 
he was accidentally wounded by his own men. The assault was 
necessarily suspended ; the enemy availed himself of this pause 
to rally and cover himself with breastworks, and thus escaped the 
almost certain ruin that would otherwise have befallen him. It 
was on this occasion, when the battle was raging with its utmost 
fierceness, that an incident of the most touching and dramatic 
character occurred. The Southern troops, pressed at one point 
by overwhelming numbers, gave back, and it seemed that their 
line would be broken. At this supreme moment, when the fate 
of the day was trembling in the balance, Lee, placing himself at 
the head of that gallant Texas Brigade that never faltered, ordered 
the men to follow him. Then was witnessed a scene never beheld 
since the time when Washington's men, seizing his bridle-rein, 
besought him not to expose himself so rashly ; a scene which even 
amid the carnage of the battle wrung tears from eyes all unused 
to weeping. Not one man advanced to the charge ; but from one 
end of the line to the other, rose high above the din of arms, the 
cry, " Lee to the rear. We will charge, but you shall not go." 
Touched beyond expression by this devotion of his troops, the 
great Captain yielded to their wishes, and he soon saw through 
the tears that almost blinded him, the men who feared death only 
for him, sweeping away the enemy as the whirlwind drives before 
it the leaves of Autumn. This charge, which cost the lives of half 
the heroic brigade that made it, restored the fight, and night found 
the enemy repulsed on every side. 

During the next day, the 7th, both armies remained in position. 
Lee having foiled the first movement of his adversary by the deci- 
sive blow he had struck, and Grant unwilling to assault those 



40 

stubborn lines he had been unable to break in a conflict of two 
days. That night he moved, with the hope of still being able to 
plant his army on the communications of Lee, by seizing Spott- 
sylvania Court House, but when the head of his columns reached 
that point, it was only to find it occupied by his enemy. Driven 
back with loss, in his attempt to secure this position, he massed 
his heavy force to crush, if possible, the enemy whom he could 
not flank; and at daylight on the 12th, he assailed the Southern 
line. A temporary advantage attended the first onset, a salient 
being carried with the loss to us, of some prisoners and guns; but 
this advantage was dearly paid for by the enemy, who left thous- 
ands of his men in front of that deadly gap, which all his efforts 
failed to widen. Lee's line was immovable, and Grant's system 
of hammering had cost him forty thousand (40,000) men in the 
first week of its trial. Failing to force a passage, he again endea- 
vored to flank the enemy he could not dislodge; but when he 
reached Hanover Junction, the point at which he aimed, Lee was 
there offering battle. Declining to take up the gauntlet thrown 
down here to him, he moved once more by the left, and crossing 
the Pamunkey, appeared at Cold Harbor, where he found the 
Army of Northern Virginia confronting him, on the same field 
which had once before proved so glorious to its arms, and so fatal 
to the Army of the Potomac. Grant had now come to the end of 
that line, on which he had declared he " would fight it out if it 
took all Summer." The first month of Summer had just opened. 
Richmond, though its spires might be seen from the adjoining 
hills was still covered by the army that had protected it so long, 
and unless he could by one last desperate effort break that brist- 
ling line of bayonets, which seemed always in his path, he would 
be forced to abandon his favorite plan of operations, and adopt 
another. His pride, his system of hammering, his temper — for 
he was a hard fighter — all urged another trial of strength. Con- 
centrating his masses in front of Lee's position, he hurled them 
against it once again, only to see them again recoil with frightful 
slaughter. Let a Federal writer tell the story of this bloody dis- 



41 

aster to Federal arms. " It took hardly more than ten minutes 
of the figment, men call time, to decide the battle. There was 
along the whole line a rush — the spectacle of impregnable works — 
a bloody loss — then a sullen falling back and the action was de- 
cided. * * * * But rapidly as the result was reached, it was 
decisive; for the consciousness of every man pronounced further 
assault hopeless. The troops went forward as far as the example 
of their officers could carry them ; nor was it possible to urge 
them beyond, for there they knew lay only death, without even 
the chance of victory. Some hours after the failure of the first 
assault, Gen. Meade sent instructions to each corps Commander, 
to renew the attack without reference to the troops on his right 
or his left. The order was issued through these officers to their 
subordinate Commanders, and from them descended through the 
wonted channels; but no man stirred, and the immobile lines 
pronounced a verdict, silent, yet emphatic against further slaughter. 
The loss on the Union side in this sanguinary action was over 
thirteen thousand, (13,000.") This is the language in which an 
eye-witness describes this battle. In the main he is correct, but 
his evident desire to palliate the disastrous defeat sustained by the 
Federals, leads him to give an exaggerated idea of the strength of 
the Southern position. Those "impregnable works," he speaks 
of, were the ordinary and temporary works hastily thrown up by 
the men occupying the line. As to the natural strength of the 
position, it is only necessary to say that Lee, with a force not one- 
third as strong as Grant's, had two years previously driven the 
Army of the Potomac from the very same ground, now held by 
the Army of Northern Virginia. The failure of the last attack 
ended Grant's " overland campaign " against Richmond. The 
result of the battle of Cold Harbor, together with the significant 
refusal of his troops to renew the assault, left him no option but 
to resort to other operations. His whole movement so far had 
been a stupendous failure; a failure which had cost him sixty 
thousand (60,000) men, while Lee had proved himself in every 
thing save numbers, infinitely his superior. 



42 

Lee's generalship was not confined solely to the direction of 
movements which came under his immediate supervision, it was 
far wider in its scope as was shown by the wonderful foresight by 
which he detected, as if by inspiration, the plans of his enemy, and 
the uequalled skill with which he defeated them. As an illustra- 
tion of his profound sagacity in those matters, it is only necessary 
to recall the complete and disastrous defeat attending the several 
expeditions set on foot about this time to cut his communications. 
By the first of these, Hunter was to move up the Valley of Vir- 
ginia with a view to the capture of Lynchburg, while two strong 
forces were to cooperate with him moving from different direc- 
tions on the same point. One of them, under Crook and Averill, 
formed a junction with him at Staunton, when the whole force 
moving through Lexington, where Hunter had the baseness to 
burn the Virginia Military Institute, together with the house of 
Gov. Letcher, reached Lynchburg on the 16th June. To aid 
this force, Sheridan was despatched with a heavy body of cavalry 
to destroy the Central Railroad, and then join Hunter, when the 
combined forces could, after taking Lynchburg, cut all Lee's com- 
munications in that quarter, and be free to move on Richmond 
from that point. Sheridan was met at Trevilliun's Station on the 
Central Road, by a force of cavalry not half as strong as his own, 
and after a conflict of two days was driven back with heavy loss, 
and that good soldier, Early, sent by Lee, reached Lynchburg in 
time to defeat Hunter, and drive him across the mountains. 

While these expeditions, from which such great results had been 
anticipated, were meeting disastrous terminations, another had 
been put in motion on the south of James river. A force of 
cavalry about eight thousand (8,000) strong had been sent under 
Wilson to cut all communications on the south of the river. 
This force was checked at Staunton river, and on its return was 
utterly routed at Sapponey Church and Ream's Station, with the 
loss of all its artillery and wagons, and a large number of men. 
In these expeditions of Sheridan and Wilson, the Federal Cavalry, 
besides their killed and wounded, amounting to a large number, 



43 

lost two thousand, three hundred (2,300) prisoners, and twelve 
(12) guns. Lee was thus able, while holding Grant at bay, to 
break with the small force at his disposal every combination made 
against him. All of Grant's attacks on Lee having been defeated, 
all his attempts at flanking thwarted, and all his expeditions end- 
ing in disaster, nothing was left to him but to cross the James 
river, and fall back on the plan of campaign, which McClellan 
was not allowed to try in 1862. This he did; having in view as 
his first object the capture of Petersburg; but he was again too 
late, the veterans of Lee reaching there not only in time to hold 
the place, but to leave ten thousand (10,000) of the enemy dead 
and wounded before it. Repulsed again, Grant, as a last resort 
laid siege to the Army of Northern Virginia, hoping that famine 
and the spade would accomplish what the weapons of his men had 
never been able to effect. In this novel operation, he had every 
advantage on his side. The river which formed an admirable 
channel of supply for his army, cut the Southern line in two. His 
base of operations was immediately at his back, and his resources 
in men and means were unlimited. The line Lee was forced to 
hold was nearly forty (40) miles long, and intersected by two 
rivers; all supplies for his troops had to be transported for hun- 
dreds of miles, over badly equipped railroads, while these supplies 
obtained with such difficulty were insufficient; his men were 
neither well-armed nor well-clothed ; and above all he had but 
thirty-five thousand (35,000) muskets, with which to hold this 
long and weak line. So reduced was the army at this time, that 
Gen. Lee said, he "did not dare to tell any one how small his 
numbers were." Yet the old fire that had led this heroic army 
to so many victories, -was not extinct. With scarcely men enough 
to form a picket line they held their position with desperate and 
unrelaxing grasp. For nine long months, the weary days and the 
bitter nights found them at their post, barring Grant's passage to 
Richmond. During all this time, one long, unceasing battle raged. 
Shot and shell were rained without cessation on their devoted 
ranks ; the great force hemming them in, swung its ponderous 



44 

weight first on one flank and then on the other, seeking what it 
could never find, a vulnerable point. The weary troops were 
forced to sleep in the trenches, for there were not men enough 
to form reliefs. 

Through that dreary Winter, this handful of brave men held, 
as with the grasp of death, that long line, against which a power- 
ful enemy was constantly exerting his utmost strength. Nor did 
they hold it only defensively. Whenever an opportunity offered, 
they struck as only the Army of Northern Virginia could strike, 
exacting a heavy toll in blood for every effort to dislodge them. 
They felt how desperate was the struggle, for save in God, they 
had no hope but in their own tried weapons and in Lee. 

Thus passed the nine months during which they were belea- 
guered ; months, in every day of which terrible suffering was 
endured, sublime fortitude displayed, and immortal deeds achieved. 
But when Spring first begun to shed its glories over the earth, all 
saw the " beginning of the end." The endurance, the heroism, 
the powers of our grand old army had been taxed to their utmost 
limits, and even Lee himself, he who had achieved with this army 
as much as man ever accomplished, could do no more. The circle 
of fire surrounding them closed in, and those lines which had been 
held so long and so heroically, in front of which thousands of the 
enemy had fallen, and every yard of which had been stained by 
the blood of their defenders, were at length broken. How and 
why they were broken can best be told in the words of him who 
held them so long, and I esteem myself fortunate in being able to 
give his explanation of this disastrous event. This is contained in 
a private letter, and I trust that the historical importance of this 
communication will excuse the seeming egotism on my part in 
making it public. The letter is as follows : 

"Near Cartersville, August 1st, 1865. 
"My Dear General: 

"I was very much gratified yesterday, at the reception of your 
letter of the 5th ult. I have been very anxious concerning you, 



45 

and could obtain no satisfactory information. * * * You cannot 
regret as much as I did that you were not with us, at our final 
struggle. The absence of the troops which I had sent to North 
and South Carolina, was I believe, the cause of our immediate 
disaster. Our small force of cavalry, (a large portion of the men, 
who had been sent to the interior to winter their horses, had not 
rejoined their regiments,) was unable to resist the united Federal 
Cavalry, under Sheridan, which obliged me to detach Pickett's 
Division to Fitz Lee's support, thereby weakening my main line, 
and yet not accomplishing my purpose. If you had been there 
with all of our cavalry, the result at Five Forks would have been 
different. But how long the contest could have been prolonged, 
it is difficult to say. It is over, and though the present is depress- 
ing and disheartening, I trust the future may prove brighter. We 
must at least hope so, and each one do his part to make it so. * * * 
I had just received sufficient reports of the operations of the army, 
from the time of its departure from Orange to its arrival before 
Petersburg, to enable me to write a narrative of events, when the 
movements of the enemy prevented. 

"All these reports, with my letter-books, records, returns, maps ? 
plans, <Szc, were destroyed by the clerks charged with their safety, 
the day before we reached Appomattox C. H , to prevent their 
falling into the hands of the enemy. I am anxions, not only to 
write a history of that campaign, but a history of the campaigns in 
Virginia; I send you a circular I had prepared on the subject. 
I hope you will be able to furnish me with an account of your 
operations, and such other information as you have. I am unwil- 
ling that the services and patriotism of our glorious men should 
be lost to posterity, and although I am unable to do justice to 
their conduct, I can collect the facts for those who can. * * * * 

"That every happiness may attend you and yours, is the earnest 

prayer of your friend, 

"R. E. Lee." 

This was the solution given by Gen. Lee, of the rupture of his 
lines, and when it is remembered how greatly, his already small 



46 

force, was reduced by the detachments sent to the South, there is 
every reason to suppose that it is the correct one. But, even after 
his lines were broken, he struggled to save his army and with it 
his country. He withdrew his troops and sought to gain those 
great mountain fastnesses in Virginia, where Washington had 
declared that he could save the liberties of America, if lost every- 
where else. But an adverse fate had pronounced against him, and 
his men, weary, foot-sore, and starved, were destined never to 
reach those strong-holds, in which their leader had said he could 
maintain the war for twenty years. Of the horrors of that fright- 
ful retreat, when with "death in the front, destruction in the rear," 
and where gaunt famine fought on the side of onr enemies, it is as 
useless, as painful, now to speak. The heart sickens as it recalls 
the death-throes of that once mighty army, whose bayonets had for 
four years sustained the liberty of the South, and it would fain 
draw a veil over the mortal agony that wrung the heart of its 
Commander, when he saw all was lost. He had done all that man 
could do, and he felt now that the time had come, when it was his 
duty as a soldier, and as a Christian, to save the farther effusion of 
blood. No thought of self entered into the consideration of this 
question. In his own w r ords, " the question is whether it is right, 
and if it is right, I take the responsibility." 

Believing that it was right to do so, he surrendered the little 
remnant of that band of heroes, who had followed him through 
three years of blood, of victory, and of glory, and he sheathed 
forever his spotless sword. 

" Never hand 

Waved sword from stain so free ; 
Nor purer sword led a braver band ; 
Nor a braver bled for a brighter land ; 
Nor a brighter land had a cause so grand ; 
Nor a cause a Chief like Lee." 

The end had come : " our sun had gone down while it was 
yet day:" that cause, so grand, sanctified by the tears, the 
prayers, the life-long agony of our noble women, and glorified 



47 

by the devotion, the patriotism, the blood of our men, fell when 
the sword of Lee was surrendered; and, with its fall, the military 
career of our great Chief ended forever. 

In order to form a correct estimate of this career, we should 
compare Lee in his character and achievements as a soldier, with 
the great Captains of other days. The late war between the States, 
though it placed millions of men in the field, gave but one soldier 
on either side who could bear for a moment the perilous com- 
parison with Lee, — his predecessor in command of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, — and as he, fortunately for the South, still 
lives, it would scarcely be agreeable to him to compare him with 
his illustrious countryman. It is true that Lee surrendered his 
sword and the skeleton of his army to the last and most success- 
ful of the Federal Commanders, but there is one criterion by which 
the merits of the two Generals can be easily tested. This test, 
simple as it is sure, consists in considering the resources of each, 
and then estimating the results accomplished by each. 

What did Lee effect with the Army of Northern Virginia? 

In the three years he commanded that army, he inflicted a loss 
on the enemy of not less, and perhaps more, than three hundred 
thousand (300,000) men, besides taking guns and small arms 
almost beyond computation. In his last campaign, with a force 
at no time exceeding forty-five thousand (45,000,) and often far 
less than that number, he destroyed one hundred and twenty 
thousand (120,000) of the enemy, and he held for nine months, 
a weak line against an army quadruple his own. These are, in 
brief, the actual, palpable, enduring results of his generalship. 

What did Grant effect during those same eleven months of 
carnage embraced in the last campaign, to prove his generalship? 
He began his movement with upwards of one hundred and fortv 
thousand (140,000) men, and he was able, on account of his great 
resources, to keep his army up to this number at least, to the close. 
In the first month of the campaign his loss was so heavy, that had 
his dead and wounded been placed touching each other, they would 
literally have formed one long, continuous, gory line, from the 



48 

Wilderness to Cold Harbor! They at least, had fought it out on 
that line. In the whole campaign he lost not less than one hun- 
dred and twenty thousand (120,000) men, and he finally, by mere 
weight of numbers — for his generalship could never have accom- 
plished this — overwhelmed his antagonist. But in order to bring 
this question down to narrower limits, let us suppose that the rela- 
tive numbers and positions of the opposing armies had been re- 
versed, and that Grant with thirty-five thousand (35,000) men, 
had occupied a line forty miles long, while Lee confronted him 
with one hundred and forty thousand (140,000) Southern troops; 
can any imagination, however wild, stretch so far as to conceive 
that he could have held that line for nine months? The proposi- 
tion is too absurd for serious consideration. He would not have 
held it for one month, not for one day, no, not for one hour ! We 
must look then to the great soldiers of the past, to find fit subjects 
for the comparison we wish to make. An English author — the 
same from whom the glowing tribute to Jackson, already quoted, 
was taken — calls Lee " the General who stands second to Welling- 
ton among the great soldiers of English blood of the present cen- 
tury ; and who, if you enlarge the field and take the world into 
competition, will acknowledge no superior besides Wellington and 
Napoleon alone." Recognizing the justice of this criticism, as far 
as Napoleon, who stands alone in the art of war, is concerned, it 
may be questioned in the case of Wellington. Coming as it does 
from an English soldier, we should receive it as the highest com- 
pliment an Englishman could pay to Lee, and I am far from 
wishing to detract from the merits of the hero of Waterloo. But 
taking him, in the words just quoted, as the great soldier of Eng- 
lish blood of the present century, and according to him full praise 
for his deeds, we of the South claim that our great soldier was his 
superior.* 



* An able writer in the Southern Review, has drawn the comparison between these 
two distinguished Captains so forcibly, that I give it in his own words. Speaking 
of the achievements of Wellington he says: "As compared with those of Gen. Lee, 
they seem, including even Waterloo, absolutely insignificant. Gen. Lee, with a force 
not so large as the Anglo-Portuguese Regular Army, which Wellington had under 



49 

If we turn from Wellington to Marlborough, the other and 
greater soldier of English blood, we shall find his achievements 
surpassed also by those of Lee. Between 1704 and 1709, Marl- 
borough won his four great victories of Blenheim, Ramilies, Oude- 
narde and Malplaquet. His numbers on each field were about 
equal to those of his enemy. The smallest force he had engaged 
in any of these battles was fifty-two thousand (52,000) men, and 
the loss he inflicted in all of thern in killed and wounded, did not 
exceed thirty-five thousand (35,000) men. Thus we see that in 



bim when he encountered Massena in 1S09 — not half so large as his whole force, if 
the Portuguese Militia be taken into the account— in the space of twenty-eight days, 
in three battles, killed and wounded more men than Wellington ever killed and 
wounded during his whole career from Assaye to Waterloo, both inclusive. In one 
of these battles be killed and wounded more men by nine thousand, (9,000,) than 
the French Army lost, including prisoners, in the whole campaign of Waterloo, and 
the pursuit to the gates of Paris. In the same battle he killed and wounded more 
men than Wellington, Blucher and Napoleon, all three together, lost in killed and 
wounded in the battle of Waterloo by five thousand (5,000) men. In the second of 
these battles he killed and wounded the same number that both the opj:>osing armies 
lost in the battle of Waterloo; and in the third he killed and wounded more men 
by seven thousand, (7,000,) than the French alone lost in the battle of Waterloo. In 
the three battles together, Lee killed and wounded more men, by at least thirty 
thousand, (30,000,) than the allies and the French lost in the whole campaign, in- 
cluding prisoners. The force with which Lee operated never amounted at one time 
to fifty thousand (50,000) men ; the force with which Wellington and Blucher acted 
was, even according to English estimates, one hundred and ninety thousand (190,000) 
strong. The force to which Lee was opposed was from first to last two hundred and 
forty thousand (240,000) strong; the force to which Wellington and Blucher were 
opposed was but one hundred and twenty-two thousand (122,000) strong. When 
Massena invaded Portugal, in 1S10, Wellington had thirty thousand (30,000) British 
troops and twenty-five thousand (25,000) Portuguese Regulars, who, in the battle of 
Busaco, according to Wellington's own account, 'proved themselves worthy to fight 
side by side with the British veterans;' besides forty thousand (40,000) admirable 
Portuguese Militia. He had Lisbon for his base, with a British war fleet riding at 
anchor, and innumerable vessels of other descriptions plying between the port and 
England, and bringing the most abundant supplies of arms, provisions and muni- 
tions of war. He had surrounded the port with the most tremendous system of 
fortifications known in modern times, and his task was to defend the strongest 
country in Europe. In Lee's case the enemy had possession of the sea, and could 
and did land a powerful army to attack the very basis of his operations, while he 
was fighting another of still greater strength in front. It is probably not altogether 
just to Wellington to institute this comparison. If his deeds look but commonplace 
beside the achievements of this campaign, so do all others. The history* of the world 
cannot exhibit such a campaign as that of Lee in 1864." 

These are startling figures, and they show by the results accomplished, how pow- 
erful an engine of destruction was the Army of Northern Virginia when wielded by 
the hand of Lee. 



50 

comparing the great soldier of the South with the greatest Cap- 
ains, to whom England, justly proud of her martial fame, has 
given birth, he was not only their peer but their superior. While 
drawing this comparison between the Confederate leader and the 
two foremost English soldiers, I have been forcibly struck by the 
resemblance he bore to them in the best traits and virtues which 
have been attributed to them, while he was free from the hardness 
of the one, and the avarice of the other. 

When the Iron Duke died, the clergyman who delivered the 
sermon on the occasion of his death said : " It has caused feeling 
of greater delight than the rehearsal of all his victories, to be in- 
formed that those who knew him best speak of his regular, con- 
sistent and unceasing piety ; of his unostentatious but abounding 
charity ; and tell us that he consecrated each day to God ; that at 
the early service in the Chapel Royal, he who was no hypocrite, 
never did any thing for a mere pretence, who scorned the very 
idea of deceit, was regularly, almost alone, confessing his sins, 
acknowledging his guilt and entreating mercy in the beautiful 
words of our own Evangelical Liturgy, not for his own merits, 
but for the merits of that Saviour who bled and died for him." 
Does not this picture of Christian devotion recall to all who knew 
him best the fervent, humble piety that marked the life of Lee? * 

It was the remark of one to whom mankind has given the rare 
title of Great, — Frederick of Prussia, — when speaking of another 



* The language in which the biographer of Marlborough paints his virtues, seems 
fitted so expressly to draw the character of our leader, that I beg to quote that also, 
though it would be unjust to his memory to suppose that he was not more deserving 
of the praise contained in it, than the hero to whom it was applied. "As a private 
individual, he possessed the domestic virtues in an eminent degree. He was a duti- 
ful and obedient son, a tender husband, an affectionate father and an indulgent 
master. * * * The endowments and virtues of so extraordinary a mind, were com- 
bined and embellished with no less distinguished graces of person and manner. * * 
His demeanor was graceful, dignified and captivating, and no man possessed in a 
higher degree the art of conciliation. His very denials were tempered with such 
gentleness and complacency, that even the applicants, who were least satisfied in 
regard to the object of their solicitations, could not quit him without being charmed 
with his deportment. * * * He was equally regular and exemplary in the perform- 
ance of moral and religious duties. Tbe principles which he had imbibed in his 
early years were indelibly impressed on his mind, and in courts and camps, as well 



51 



extraordinary man, that "Cromwell did not deserve the surname 
of Great, which is due only to virtue." If this be so, as it surely 
should be, we shall search history in vain for one more deserving 
the appellation than the Christian hero who led the armies of the 
South. There is one other name holding a noble place in history, 
which is worthy to be put by the side of that of Lee, the name of 
one to whom our immortal Chief, in his genius, his virtues, and 
his piety, bore a striking resemblance, that of Gustavus Adolphus, 
the hero of Sweden. It would be an interesting subject to trace 
the historical parallel between these two illustrious soldiers and to 
observe how strangely history sometimes repeats itself, not only in 
the affairs and fate of Nations, but in the character of those whose 
actions have had a permanent influence on the world. But this 
discussion would lead into too wide a field, and passing reference 
can now alone be made to a few of the most prominent points in 
which these two great Champions, — the one of religions, and the 
other of civil liberty, — resembled each other. Both of them pos- 
sessed in the highest degree, not only all those virtues which dig- 
nify humanity, but those nobler ones which true Christianity alone 
can give. Both were, even by their enemies, regarded as sincere, 
pure, honest and pious. It will be an eternal honor to Gustavus, 
that he was the first who sought to strip war of some of its horrors 
by restraining his men from the commission of those atrocities, 
which too often stain the progress of an army, and by impressing 
on them, that they fought not for conquest, nor for pillage, nor for 
vengeance, but for the faith of their fathers. 



as in domestic life, he exhibited the same pious confidence in an overruling Provi- 
dence. He was a firm believer in the truths of the Christian Revelation, and zeal- 
ously attached to the devotions of the Established Church. Hence he was punctual 
in his attendance on the divine offices, a frequent communicant, and manifested a 
devotion no less remote from enthusiasm than from indifference. He was never 
known to utter an indecent word, or to give an example of levity. * * * He dis- 
countenanced the slightest degree of intemperance or licentiousness, and labored to 
impress his officers and troops with the same sense of religion which he himself 
entertained. * * * Previous to a battle prayers were offered up at the head of each 
regiment, and the first act after a victory was a solemn thanksgiving." 

These are the colors in which this writer paints the nobler qualities in the charac- 
ter of Marlborough, and while admitting that these colors are too bright, wo can 
readily conceive that this distinguished Captain, like Wellington and Lee, possessed 
not only ability as a soldier, but many qualities of a higher nature. 



52 



In the two centuries which have rolled by, since the fair-haired 
Swede led that army of patriots to victory on the field of Lutzen, 
the world has seen but twice the glorious spectacle of such an 
army, led by Chiefs who were his equals in virtue. Once, when 
Washington fought for liberty, and again, when Lee struck in the 
same great cause. Like Gustavus, Lee was modest, brave and 
magnanimous, and like him too, he was opposed by men, who 
waged war on the savage principles of Tilly and of Wallenstein. 
Great and good as was the noble Swede, we point proudly to Lee 
as his equal. Few indeed, and far between, are the names written 
on the page of history, which will live as long in the esteem, the 
admiration, and the affection of mankind, as that of the great Vir- 
ginian. 

The military career of Gen. Lee has been traced at far greater 
length than was desirable on such an occasion but as rapidly as the 
subject would allow. It has been my object, not to embarrass the 
narrative by any criticisms of my own, but to let the great actions 
which marked that career, through its whole progress, speak for 
themselves. From these actions, the verdict of history will after 
all, be made up, and that verdict, neither the praise of his friends, 
nor the censure of his enemies, will be able to influence. We place 
him, without one doubt, before that august tribunal, feeling as- 
sured that his motives, his deeds and his virtues, will be judged 
by posterity, as we, his countrymen, judge them now. 

" His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone, 
For he was great e'er fortune made him so ; 
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, 
Made him, but greater seem, not greater grow. 

"His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest; 

His name, a great example stands to show, 
How strangely, high endeavors may be blest, 
Where piety and valor jointly go." 

At the close of Gen. Lee's military service he retired quietly to 
private life, and though the record left by him as a private citizen 



53 

is as noble as any portion of his whole career, it was unfortunately 
for the South and for the world all too brief. He lost no time in 
vain regrets, but set himself resolutely to fulfil the duties which 
were before him. Offers of assistance poured in on him from all 
quarters ; but though deeply touched by this evidence of the love 
entertained for him, he refused them all, saying, " my friends have 
offered me everything except work." He felt that it was his duty 
to work, and with him, " duty was the sublimcst word in our lan- 
guage." His own tastes led him to seek absolute retirement, and 
prompted by these he was at first disposed to refuse the Presidency 
of the Washing-ton College. But when it was suggested to him 
that he could accomplish infinite good in this position, he at once 
determined to accept the place. Having done this, no offer of 
pecuniary advantage could tempt him to quit the path where duty 
led him. As he himself has expressed it, " I have a self-imposed 
task which I must accomplish. I have led the young men of the 
South to battle. I have seen many of them fall under my standard. 
I shall devote my life now to training young men to do their duty 
in life." 

To this task he devoted himself with all the intensity of his 
great nature, and he was found at this post when he was sum- 
moned to the presence of that God whom he had served so long 
and so well. Surrounded by all that domestic affection could give, 
or public veneration could bestow, it was the fond hope of our 
people that he would long be spared to the South, to teach her sons 
to follow his example and emulate his virtues. But he himself felt 
that the wounds his heart had received, were mortal. When he 
rallied from his first attack and we were cheered by the hope that 
his precious life would be spared, a friend called to congratulate 
him on his convalesence, and to express the hope that his health 
would soon be perfectly restored. Shaking his head gravely, and 
placing his hand on his heart, he replied, " No : the trouble is 
here." The trouble was indeed there, for the sorrows, the afflic- 
tions and the wrongs of the people whom he loved so well, were 
snapping one-by-one his heart-strings, and he fell at last, dying as 



54 



truly for the South, as if he had fallen in her cause on the bloodiest 
field he ever won in her defence. And thus he passed away from 
the scene of his labors and his glory, to appear at the bar of that 
Great Judsre, who alone can and will decide, whether the cause in 
which he died, was right or wrong. But though he is no longer 
with us, his example, his fame and his virtues are still left to us, 
and he thus is not dead. 

" But strew his ashes to the wind, 
Whose sword or voice, has served mankind. 
And is he dead, whose glorious mind 

Lifts thine on high ? 
To live in hearts we leave behind, 

Is not to die. 

"Is't death to fall for Freedom's right? 
He's dead alone, that lacks her light! 
And murder sullies in Heaven's sight 

The sword he draws. 
"What can alone ennoble fight? 

A noble cause." 





ADDRESS 




LIFE AND CHARACTER 



Gen. ROBERT E. LEE, 



Delivered on the 12th of October, 1871, 



BEFORE THE 



Society of Confederate Soldiers and Sailors, 



In Maryland. 



By Lieut. General WADE V HAMPTON 



P«blis^e& bg mqtusi of i\t JSothig. 




BALTIMORE: 
Printed by John Murphy & Co 

Publishers, Booksellers, Printers and Stationers, 
182 Baltimore Street. 

1871. 



-^r^ 




Just Published, in neat Pamphlet form, tinted paper, price 30 cts. 

ADDEESS ON THE 

Life and Character of Gen. R. E. LEE, 

Delivered on the 12th of October, 1871, before the Society of 

Confederate Soldiers and Sailors, in Maryland. 
By Lieut. General WADE HAMPTON 

TPublislied. by Request of tlie Society. 

tfs^By Mail on receipt of price. 



IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. 

Preparing for Publication, Early in 1872, Embellished with a Fine Portrait of the 
Chief Justice, on Steel, in one volume, octavo, printed on fine paper, and bound in Morocco 
cloth, bevelled, price %b. Library style, Marbled edges, $6. Half Morocco, $7. 

A Work of Extraordinary Interest and of Permanent Value to the Historian, the Lawyer, the Statesman, and 
Every Intelligent Reader. ^This Work will be Supplied to Subscribers only. 

A. MEMOIE OF 

ROGER BROOKE TANEY, LL.D. 

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Slates. 
By SAMUEL TYLER, LL.D., of the Maryland Bar. 

Mr. Tyler was selected by Chief Justice Taney, two years before his death, as his biographer. All 
his Private papers, were from time to time, placed in the hands of Mr. Tyler, by his executors and 
lamily. The biography is, for every fact stated, perfectly authentic. 

the first chapter of the Memoir was written by the Chief Justice. It is of peculiar interest. Some 

the then great Lawyers of the Maryland Bar are described in life-like portraits. And topics, which 
only his memory could recall from the past, are brought before us in a charming narr< tive. 

In the subsequent chapters written by Mr. Tvler, are matters of the highest inteiest to the historian, 
the lawyer, the state-man, and every class of intelligent readers. The life of the Chief Justice ex- 
tended thro ij long period of our history, (born in 1777, his life extended to 1864,) and he 
occupied so many important posts of honor and responsibility, that to present him as he appeared as 
an actor m affairs, much of the history of the working of the Federal Government has to be narrated. 
Many interesting and imposing facts never belt. re disclosed will give a varied interest to the Memoir. 
Important private acts of the Chief Jnsiice will lie disclosed that will, for all lime, serve as examples 
to public men Altogether, the Memoir is one of extraordinary interest, and will be of permanent 
value in the history of the United States. 

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t&rAGElVrs wanted in all parts of the U. S. to sell tins awl other Popular Works. 

For particulars, address MURFIIY £■ CO. Publishers, Baltimore. 

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This little volume, intended as a Model for American Youth, will be issued in a very neat and at- 
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MISS EMILY MASON'S WORKS. 

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Now Ready, in 1 vol. Demi 80. Morocco cloth, bevelled, black and gold, $3. Library style, $3.50. 

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A Popular Life of Gen. R. E. LEE, 

By EMILY V. MASON. 

Dedicated toy Permission to Mrs, LEE. 

Dedicatory Preface. — My Dear Mrs. Lee: — With your permission I dedicate to you this life of our 
beloved hero. It may seem daring in one so unpracticed to attempt a theme so lofty. But I have 
hoped that the love and admiration I felt for Gen. Lee, would inspire me with ability to present him 
to others as I knew him. 

Other writers will exhibit his public life, his genius and magnanimity. I wish to show more of his 
domestic character and private virtues ; his unwearied industry, his self-control and self-denial, his 
unselfish temper; his generous kindness, his gentle manners; his modesty and moderation in suc- 
cess ; his patience in difficulties and disappointments, and his noble fortitude in defeat and disaster. 

That you, who are most jealous of his fame should h'>nor me with your approval, leads me to hope 
for the like indulgence from the American people to whose history he belongs. E. V. MASON. 

This work is issued in an elegant and attractive volume, embellished with 17 Fine Original Engrav- 
ings, by Professor Volck, Illustrating the principal scenes in his Life. It is rated at a very low price, 
so as to place it within the reach of the soldiers whom he commanded, and the people by whom he 
was loved and honored. 

Published for the Benefit of the Lee Memorial Association of Richmond. 

In a very neat volume, [old style,) small 4to, price in cloth, $1 ; cloth gilt, $1.50. 

IM OF A YOU LAD! OF WMM 

Edited by EMILY V. MASON. 

From the Baltimore Gazette.—" We have before us an advance copy of a Journal of a Young Lady of 
Virginia, 1782, printed and published for the benefit of the Lee Memorial Association of Richmond, 
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«®-The Sale of 1,000 Copies, in less than 60 days, is a gratifying evidence of the merits of this interest- 
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SOUTHERN POEMS of the WAR. 

Collected and Arranged by EMILY V. MASON. 

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